Pistons Beat Our Wizards +10.5 Pick by Half a Point

Detroit 122, Washington 111. The Pistons won by 11, one point more than our Wizards +10.5 could survive. That's a half-point miss, and it stings.

The thesis was that Detroit, laying double digits on the second night of a back-to-back and its third game in seven days, would be sluggish against a Washington team with two days of rest. We put that fatigue edge at roughly 2 to 4 points, enough to keep this game inside ten. It wasn't. Detroit won by double digits, and whatever the rest disadvantage was worth, it didn't keep the margin under the number.

We also flagged the season-long gap, Pistons at +7.2 per game against Washington at -4.7, but warned that it rested on only 8 to 10 games. Detroit's 2-2 home mark, with 110.0 points for and 108.75 against, looked middling, and that caution kept this a small play. Anthony Davis's questionable tag was another reason to keep our confidence low.

Our read on the rest situation was reasonable, and the result doesn't make it wrong. The Pistons did what a favorite laying double digits has to do: win by at least that many. We'll take the loss, note the lesson about how little room a half-point cushion leaves, and move on to the next slate.